All Our Yesterdays
by Obscure Bird
Summary: Love, schemes, and serious psychological damage: stories from the lives of the Macbeths. These semi-connected one-shots may end up ranging from (naturally) dark material to outright fluff. Rated M as a precaution.


**In the Winter**

 _This came from a prompt on fanficy-prompts on tumblr. Contains non-explicit references to sex and menstruation. I obviously don't own Macbeth._

In the winter, all they have is each other.

The fury of a Scottish winter makes the roads impassable, wraps Inverness in a shroud of flying snow. No messengers arrive. No orders from Scone. No Vikings, no Saxons, no rebellion lifts its head.

She knows he's restless, at the first, so she does her best. She keeps him plied with games, with little wagers between them, with conversation. He takes to sparring with his soldiers in the hall. She brings her sewing down to watch him. He beats them back, two at a time, with blunted sword, and she finds that watching makes her pulse run quick and warm.

It's a strong man she married.

And in the evening, while the winds howl around the towers, they have furs and fire and hot, mulled wine. They lock the door. The colder the night outside, the warmer seem his hands, his lips, the skin beneath his tunic.

…..

When spring comes, they turn eagerly to other pursuits. He to his hunting, she to her gardens.

(And the Norse to their raiding. And the Saxons to their greed. And the Scottish lords to their squabbles and their schemes.)

The sunlight is a relief, and to escape from stone walls a pleasure. To walk freely, and to listen to the swallows signing as they renovate their nests beneath the battlements. She supervises the planting of the crops that will feed their household. With her own hands, she tends her little plot of herbs and flowers – plants with the power or life. Plants with the power of death.

And in the afternoon, before the shadows fall, there come the clamor of hooves and hounds. She watches him ride back from the wood. The dogs' mouths are smeared with gore. There'll be venison tonight, and her lord will be smiling. She hears him now, striding through the gardens, the arrows rattling in his quiver. She pretends she doesn't notice him, until he plucks her like a leaf from among her boneset and feverfew and aconite.

It's a strong man she married, and the fresh air and exertion make him eager.

She rides to see their flocks. The ewes stagger, swollen with lambs soon to be delivered. There's something in her still alive to hope. She wonders if, before the winter falls again, she might be as heavy with young as they.

But, moon by moon, she bleeds. There is no springtime in her frozen womb.

…..

The summer bears fruit. The northern days are long. Sometimes it seems like they never end. And the underneath the sun, the grass on the shielings grows long and lush, the rows of kale and turnips thick, green lines across the fields. They spill over into the furrows.

War spills over, too.

Their courtyard swells with noise and bustle. The fires burn under forges. Hammers ring. Whetstones growl. Messengers rattle in and out as thick as the flies in the byres. Inverness lies at night in the center of a field of campfires as men begin to gather.

She is as busy as her lord. He needs her. Kissing her, he calls her his second in command, and he is only half jesting. She draws up the provisions for his men. She pulls them from their stores. She arranges for the soldiers' pay. She finds the maps he'll need.

She's well prepared for this. She's made in her mission to build their stores and their silver year by year. She wants him to call a bigger army, better supplied, and faster, too, than any other thane. It's a strong man she married, and she wants all Scotland to know it.

And then he leaves her.

And all at once, the castle stands empty. Still and silent as the long, bright days. She has her sewing and the household books. She has the spinning and weaving to see to, a hundred things to do. But she feels empty, restless.

She waits the summer out, pretending not to worry. Pretending not to feel disappointed that he hasn't left a child behind in her belly.

Summer makes everything fruitful but her.

…..

The autumn comes with harvest – golden and plenteous and joyful. It comes with storms as well, heavy, clouds that flood the moors and buried glen and mountain in the shadow of their clouds. It comes with slaughter, as the herds are driven from the hills. They cull them, because they were too many for the winter pastures.

The men work at the foot of the hill, sawing at the cattle. The ground around them is soaked in blood.

That's how he comes back to her, too. Like the autumn.

He smiles when he rides back, a line of men trudging behind him. Cheering as the keep rises into view. He smiles and swings her into his arms. He smiles, when the stories of his battles are told, and when he whispers, with buried ambitions glinting in his eyes, of the honors he's won from the king. Full of gold and glory. Celebrating.

And wild.

Something harrowed about him. He looks so thin, so rugged. Like the bear and the stag, shaggy with the coming cold, fleeing to their den. Hunted not by lords and their hounds, but by time. By the deepening cold. By the desperate urge to be ready against the winter.

He looks hunted. In their bedroom, with his restless hands roaming over her skin, he tells her different stories the ones told in the hall. Of wounds. Of screaming men crushed beneath the hooves of the cavalry. Of the crows that eat the flesh of patriot and invader alike.

He is hunted, not by swords and arrows, but by time. By the deaths he'd escaped in battle. By the one he wouldn't. He took her urgently. He fights a battle every night, as each night grows longer, colder, darker.

But he loses. This was the darkening season, when no seed takes root.

…..

In the winter, all they have is each other.

When the snow and the bitter winds seal up the mountain passes, when he grows restless, while she does her best to keep him happy, she dreams. She thinks of a way to keep him here. To keep him safe.

A way to keep him name alive, in history if not in an heir of his own blood.

The wind moans around the wall, and the draft swings the heavy tapestry that covers the window. She listens to it, lying awake. He sleeps beside her, curled up like a child. His head lays on her breast, his breath brushing the delicate skin. She smiles as she strokes his disheveled hair.

She knows he deserves it. She knows they can do it, what they have to do. It's a strong man she married.

She knows. Some springtime, these seeds would grow.

...

 _Thanks for reading. Reviews are much appreciated. Even if it's just to talk about the characters. Especially if it's about the characters. I love these guys. :)_


End file.
